[royce]

The problem with having a lot of time on your hands is you think a lot and come up with a lot of stupid ideas, but sometimes if you think about a stupid idea long enough you start to see ways that things can be done without spending a fortune.

I really like these things but as you can see from the Yeti 1250 its $2200 for 100ah/hr of battery and 60w of solar, you get usb and 240v power too but that's not important to me and its way out of my price range (though they are great value for money if you aren't well versed in making your own and want it to just work)

Ive had a 'battery box' setup for a while that in reality was a cheap storage tub with an AGM battery, dual battery controller and solar regulator all stuffed in, that would sit in the rear footwell of the swift hooked up to an anderson plug to charge off the alternator, worked well for weekend climbing trips running my fridge and recharging everyones phones once word got out but the box soon fell apart.



So ive been thinking about a replacement, I once had a box made of ply with some sockets in it but it looked suss and doing that sort of thing is a bit beyond me for now so ive been limited to looking for off the shelf boxes that might work, until now nothing has really been a good fit.

Until now

Surfing the junkmail I see a cheap plastic 13l esky at Supercheap, so armed with a pic of my battery dimensions off I went to have a look, it turned out perfect so I now own an esky.
http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/online ... 0301#Cross



So I started having a look at what might fit where and pulling all the old stuff out.



So what I want it to do.
Charge from the Alternator and my 100w solar panel
Power my 50l Waeco
Have some high current power outlets for whatever, maybe I might need an inverter one day or to run some stand mounted LED's or something
Have a normal Ciggy socket for things that might need that
Have some decent USB sockets to charge USB things (head torches and so on are more and more becoming usb powered)
Show how much battery capacity is remaining and whats going on.
When everything is unplugged, not have any leads hanging off it nor need to be open when operational.

So off for some google shopping.
Looking after charge is easy
http://www.ctek.com/au/en/chargers/D250S%20DUAL $220

This looks like a great unit, send alternator or solar power to it and it takes care of properly charging your battery, this is hard to do from an alternator, the downside to it is it only charges at 20amps so if you had a large AGM bank and high power draw and no solar you might have trouble keeping the batteries charged while driving.
Power outlets and so on
For this I will use Anderson Power Poles, everyone is aware of Anderson plugs, these are smaller modular units that can be panel mounted and configured how you like
http://andersonpower.com.au/

Ill use this flush mount panel to have 10 sockets on the side of the box

I will lay it out something like this

Using colour coded plugs for each pair, it wont be idiot proof but I should be the only one touching it anyway. the panel and 24 assorted plugs is $44 posted.

USB Power
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dual-USB-Soc ... f42&_uhb=1
This looks like the best bet to me, has a 2.1 amp outlet which most phones these days will use to charge quickly and is a must for tablets, most of the other outlets I looked at were dual 1 amp or to plug into a ciggy socket, I think this is neater $20
Battery meter
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DC-90V-30A-V ... a25&_uhb=1
Ive had this a while and its a nice little unit, will show you all the usual current volts and amps stuff but also measure amp hours in and out so when wired correctly will tell you how much battery you have left rather than guessing from voltage, it would be nice to know things like how much you used and how much you charged in a day but this is more than enough for a portable setup $28

Stuff I already have
Battery http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/80AH-12V-Dee ... ff2&_uhb=1
Don't know why I picked this one but its more than enough to do what I normally do with it, run my fridge from Friday night to Sunday arvo without worrying about topping it up $200

Solar, dont have a link to mine but its a generic ebay 100w folding kit, its probably doesn't put out what it claims and the regulator and leads were crap but it was cheap at $150 odd

This stuff gets cheaper every day day and what you might get depends on what you need, 100w will cover a typical efficient fridge well enough, you might want to run a few lights and so on as well and want quicker recharge times so a 200w panel might suit

There will be some fuse holders and cable and so on in it as well but I have all that floating around, say that's $50 worth

So for about $750 I have a 12v system that will charge from a few sources, power my fridge for a few days with no input and generally be pretty easy to use and move around (and hopefully not look bodgy)

I would like to use proper solar connectors on those leads but panel mounted ones seem to be hard to find and it would be cool to have an inverter built in but it wont fit and I have never needed one, everything I might ever take away from home will run from 12v or USB and my power at home is stable enough to not think about needing something as backup in a blackout.

It will be a while before I spend any money on the rest of the stuff I need but next up I might try and noobcad out a wiring diagram of how it will all patch together.

[christover1]

Nice, mine won't be that complex, just a reg, small battery and fuses into a real battery box, for the camper

[schmiffee]

Royce, this is GOLD and I am REALLY interested in seeing how this setup goes. For my needs it would fit perfectly. I am bookmarking this project, so when you do have updates, please take photo's and details as what you are wanting from yours is pretty much exactly what I will need from mine also Thanks so much for the inspiration!!

[pezz]

you had me at 'climbing trips'

[got_bar_work]

I would use the Anderson plugs for solar
Mc4 plugs would be a pain as u r meant to use a tool to open them
Box looks great.
Watch ur open circuit voltage on the solar the mppt has a 22v limit

[krat]

Will watch this build with interest.
Great info Royce,

[royce]

Anderson bits arrived

[bohuler]

Royce,

To use the D250S DUAL in an existing dual battery setup would you put it on the line from the starting battery to the isolator or on the other side of the isolator to the second battery.

Dave

[royce]

It replaces the isolator

[royce]

I started fiddling this morning while in the garage waiting for Gypsy to come round and got a bit carried away.
I cut and flattened the rounded corners so the battery would fit closer to the edge, then it turned out the Ctek dimensions werent quite what they said they are so I had to make some room.




I decided cutting the side out and making a panel to mount it all would be the way to go, everything will just fit.



Ill leave it at that for now cause i'm sposed to be getting ready for Hospital but I'll sketch up the wiring next

[royce]

Got bored, seems to work, ill test the solar tomorrow

[bakerboy]

ctek dual is the way to get for a setup like that, looks the goods, pity they can't sell those eskys in WA

[royce]

Big thanks to Pubic for the last bit of the puzzle, now it will look like an esky with a nice panel on the side not an esky with a dodgy piece of shit on the side of it.

[Pubic]

But do the bits fit???

[royce]

Just stuck it together then, they all fit in, i just have to dremel some more esky out to fit it all

[Pubic]

Winning! Glad to hear it.

[royce]

Done, now ive gotta go get the battery replaced, it dies after 15 ah/hr of drain

[Skippy]

Looks good royce, i have done something similar for a friend just you have a fancy box i have been given a battery from a fire panel that is still in good condition so might look at a esky or something a bit nicer like yours.

[pezz]

looks great friend

[ca18zook]

I have been busy over the last few months making the under tray toolboxes and finished the install of the 2nd battery. Im running a 150 amp Lifeline battery fitted in its custom boxer that are available. This runs my fridge in the back and also has a feed running from it to an anderson plug on the towbar for the camper. I have fitted a 250w solar panel on the roof racks and runs the water pump for the water tank, ready for the school holidays.

[royce]

Box is going well, its currently sitting in the kitchen running my waeco full of Chemo spec frozen meals with my Ctek charging it cause the stupid waeco 240v supply blew another fuse, last few days its been running a HID worklight as well cause the lights in this place died.

I was looking around in the garage at all the junk and decided I had enough crap to make another one, smaller and different (and dodgier) though.

1 ammo can, 1 7ah/hr AGM (enough room for another if I decide to spend money on it) a circuit breaker cause I have no fuse holders and some more Power poles so I can run stuff off it and daisy chain it to the big box for charging.

Oh, and a 35w HID Hella Worklight and a 12w or something LED worklight on the end, I guess that makes it a torch







I still have to scab up some switches from somewhere and I might mount the little volt gauge I have from the last box and if I can figure out an actual use for it I might mount the power poles in a similar panel and tidy it up a bit.

[pezz]

Imagine if you took you new 'torch' and tattached it to a hard hat.... bam, you have yourself a new head lamp

[royce]

Decided to ignore all that stuff Doctors say about being near sick people - crowds, being in the cold, being in the sun, doing dangerous stuff and protecting your skin etc etc and went climbing for the weekend to try the box out.

Left the fridge in the car all day in the sun (24-5 degrees and sometimes overcast) and it would use about 10 ah/hr from losing the sun till the next morning and be back up to charge by lunch.

I started the fridge off the battery the night before leaving and by the time I was ready to go the next morning it had chewed through 20 ah/hr!!!!! so it was a good test to see how well it recharged off the alternator, I didn't see higher than 16 amps charging on the amp meter, not sure if that was all that was left in the alternator, if my wiring is dodgy (doubt but ill check) or that's all the Ctek thought the battery deserved but it still charged to 100% by the time I got to where I was going.

All in all it worked a lot better than the old setup and I had a lot better idea of what was going on and when.

[Mike57]

Royce,

You don't seem to be using an isolator between you main battery and the secondary battery. Won't that mean that the secondary will continue to charge from the main when the car is turned off? Or do you have the isolator somewhere else?

Mike

[royce]

The ctek will only charge via the alternator terminal when its above a certain voltage, under that it isolates.

I am also sure I read that when the aux is to 100% and there is excess charge available, it will charge the main battery, so having an extra isolator would prevent that.